Originally posted by Baashi: My problem with your cyber warmongering is you seem to be a chiken hawk ya know what I mean! You provoke Ethiopians and Ugandans and you run away and hide behind civilian areas. Sounds like something Bush would say. “America is fighting a tough war against an enemy whose ruthlessness is clear for all to see,” he said. “The terrorists attempt to bring down airplanes full of innocent men, women and children. They kill civilians and American servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they deliberately hide behind civilians in Lebanon.” Source

^^^ He does.

Originally posted by Geel_Jire12: Somalis probably send the highest amount of remittances back home more than any other group. People save up their benefit money to send back home. One billion US dollars per year. That's $500-1000 by every man, woman and child in the diaspora.

LSK, you have a good point but tell that to the people who lost loved ones and have seen their lives destroyed. These men are armed and have a clear mandate to help the TFG, the very entity destroying the lives of the people.

These are paid mercenaries and they should have known the inherent risks attached to being in a war zone. Still, I'd rather see Ethiopian troops and their collaborators suffering this fate.

^^^ You're not even a Ethiopian stooge, yeey is. You'll have to evolve to become a stooge.

Originally posted by TheSomaliEconomist: I find it amusing how some ppl degrade southern somalis as genetically backward barbarians. So says someone who supports the Ethiopian bombing of civilians in Southern Somalia with warplanes. I said the "rest" of Somalia but you had to narrow it down to Southern Somalis. Going with that, either Southern Somalis are "genetically backward barbarians" who need to be bombed into civility or those who're bombing them (and their supporters) are the genetically backward barbarians. Take your pick, Somali "patriot". I think you already know which one is my pick.

Tue. May 15, 2007 08:30 pm.- By Mohamed Abdi Farah. - Send this news article (SomaliNet) Five people died and fifteen others were wounded in a huge bomb explosion which rocked Bardhere town of Gedo region in southwest of Somalia on late Tuesday. Witnesses told Somalinet that the blast occurred inside a cinema in the town as large number of people were viewing a film at the time of incident. The explosion happened around 7:00 pm local time. All the dead were civilians; 3 adults and 2 children and 15 others were injured by the blast. “At once, I heard a huge and deafening sound of explosion beside me, I was inside the cinema when the incident occurred, thanks to God, I survived but many of my friends got hurt in the blast,” said one eyewitness who was among viewers. It is not yet clear what caused the explosion but some believe that un unknown man has thrown a hand grenade bomb into the cinema and escaped unharmed. The blast came as former defense minister Bare Aden Shire reached today Bardere with several battlewagons. Somalinet

Tue. May 15, 2007 08:00 pm.- By Mohamed Abdi Farah (SomaliNet) The chairman of the Somali reconciliation conference Ali Mahdi Mohamed revealed on Tuesday the location where the June meeting will be held. Mr. Mahdi said the former compound of police transport maintenance in Mogadishu will host the national reconciliation meeting which is due to take place in mid June. “There are now preparations in the compound which is enough to accommodate the delegations,” added Mahdi. He said his reconciliation committee will send delegations to all regions in Somalia to invite the traditional leaders into the conference. Mr. Mahdi noted that international delegates will observe the meeting but he declined to clarify whether representatives from Puntland and Somaliland would participate in June conference. He said the meeting will be inclusive and aimed to end the clan conflict in Somalia. Ali Mahdi, former president in Somalia, said the Islamic leaders can attend the meeting if they are representing their clans. He indicated that the reconciliation committee will guarantee the safety of all attendees. Somalinet

^^^ I'm well aware of that. The facts in this case, however, speak for themselves. Are you disputing any of the statements he made on the Mogadishu carnage?

Originally posted by Legend of Zu: <---As Southerner... I do not support a unification with SL until SL compeletes its secession Clearly, the leaders of the rest of Somalia have shown themselves incapable of governance and may be a leadership from Somaliland is just what the doctor ordered. Both president and prime minister from Somaliland. That's a conversation starter for the return. P.S. Riyaale and other secessionists need not apply.

By Paul Reynolds World Affairs correspondent, BBC News website John Holmes arrives in Mogadishu Mr Holmes cut short his visit after a bomb blast "I do not think you can say this is a recovering city. It is a fairly depressing prospect," is how the senior UN emergency aid official John Holmes describes Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. He should know. He had to leave Mogadishu in a hurry last Saturday when bombs went off near the UN compound and killed three people. His words sum up the international view of Somalia as once again it fails to emerge from upheaval, this time the overthrow of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) in a counter-offensive in late December launched by Ethiopia in support of the somewhat hopefully named Transitional Federal Government. Such is the chaos that the main international effort at the moment has to be on the humanitarian crisis. Aid needed The UN's Central Emergency Response Fund says that one million Somalis, of whom 400,000 are displaced from their homes, are in need of assistance and protection. 71% of the population is classed as undernourished. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says: "Somalia is into its worst humanitarian crisis in nearly 15 or 16 years. Of the estimated 430,000 to 350,000 who fled to Mogadishu due to heavy fighting, only 60,000 can be reached by the humanitarian community." OCHA puts the number of Somalis in need of help at 1.8 million. Response plan There is of course an international plan to make things better in Somalia. There is always a plan in these crises. The question is whether it can be implemented. The plan was put forward in UN Security Council resolution 1744, passed in February, in the aftermath of the quick victory declared by Ethiopia over the Islamic Courts, a victory whose completeness has been called into severe question by continuing unrest and attacks. The idea is that there should be a national reconciliation effort led by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and the "Transitional Federal Institutions" and that the African Union should send in a peacekeeping force to help with this process, with possibly a UN force to take over at a later stage. The pessimism of international diplomats even at that stage, however, was expressed in the remarks of the British and French representatives. The British ambassador said that it was "but one small step" and that the Somali people had to "work together". African Union soldier in Somalia AU peacekeepers have failed to end the violence in Somalia So did the French envoy, who said that it was "up to the Somalis and to them alone to seize the unique opportunity the African Union is offering them... the future of Somalia is in their hands." Since then, not a great deal has been accomplished, as Mr Holmes found out. The AU has got about 1,000 Ugandan troops in the country and has pledges of more from Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi and Burundi. But whether it will ever get deployed to any significant level, let alone to its planned force level of 8,000 is not at this point known. And the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has said on a visit to Kuwait that his troops will "complete their withdrawal" only after the AU force arrives. That could be a long wait. It is unlikely that Ethiopia will want to leave until it knows that its achievement in routing the Islamic Courts will not be reversed. US position The American view was put forward in a speech on 21 April by James Swan, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, who from 1994 to1996 covered events in Somalia from his post in Nairobi. US policy, he said, had three main objectives. The first was help the humanitarian effort, mainly by providing food aid but with the aim of moving into development when that became possible. The second was to support the "establishment of effective government in Somalia". The third was "to prevent Somalia from becoming a terrorist safe haven". "This is not an idle risk," he said. Several of the suspects in the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the Mombassa hotel bombing in 2002, he stated, "took refuge in Somalia and were harboured by certain extremist elements with the Islamic Courts structure." Such fears about such al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda inspired links make it also likely that, like Ethiopia, the US will not want anything that might allow a return of the UIC. This could make the task of finding a national reconciliation even harder. In the meantime, the problem of finding and helping refugees remains. No wonder Mr Holmes was depressed. BBC

AllPropaganda (also known as AllPuntland) is a perversion of journalism. Like others who support this cowardly regime, it stinks to high heaven. Uff. Hiiraale, Caydiid, Cali Mahdi and others like them are opportunist b*stards. Ilaahay haysku diro kuligood.

Student Mohamed Abdi, 35, was in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, during the recent heavy fighting. He told the BBC News website how the fighting was relentless and how he feared for his life. I can't express how horrible the heavy fighting was. It was like a horror film. I was here in the city all those days when the fighting was going on. Those 10 days were so difficult... Being bombed, the mortar shelling - the fighting did not stop, day and night. If you went out to eat, you could not be sure if you would return to your home. When you saw a friend, you could not be sure if you would see your friend again... you would say goodbye to each other, wondering if it would the last. One night I had to seek cover in Bakara Market as I couldn't make it home. But the market became a target and was bombed several times that night. All night I couldn't sleep. I feared for my life and for all the others there with and around me. 'The watchman' When dawn broke I ventured out - people were lying on the ground everywhere, mostly dead. There was an old man who had been one of the market's watchmen. Fragments of shells had hit him where he had been guarding. He had bled all night. We wanted to take him to hospital but we couldn't find a car. Finally we found a man with a car and we convinced him to take the watchman to hospital. We pleaded with him to take the watchman. That watchman, I still think of him how he was when we found him - old, with no family and bleeding. I don't know if he lived. I went to the hospital but couldn't find him. 'Such a mess' I am studying at the Somali Institute for Management and Administration Development which is on one of the main roads in the city - we call it 'The Military Road' because it is where the military convoys pass by. Since the lull in the fighting our classes have resumed again. About three of the buildings were damaged by the shelling and all of the campus is a wreck. None of it has been cleared away yet. It is such a mess. I haven't been able to attend my classes though as all my time is being spent trying to get my family back home. My wife and child fled to Jowhar, 90km away from Mogadishu, when the fighting became very bad. Here in Somalia you don't know who to blame for all our misfortune. Sometimes you blame yourself. I ask myself why was I born a Somali. But some people blame the government, the Ethiopians and the Americans. I don't know how stability will come back. I hope for a stable government. The violence is a daily occurrence - if you don't experience it today, you will tomorrow.

Tom Porteous 14 - 5 - 2007 The west’s policy in Somalia is fuelling rather than resolving a devastating conflict, says Tom Porteous. When Ethiopian troops defeated Somalia's Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in Mogadishu last December and January it looked like a cakewalk. But since then the armed opposition to Ethiopia's presence in Somalia - and to their Somali allies - has grown. In April 2007, Mogadishu was hit by the heaviest fighting in fifteen years. Getting reliable information from Somalia is difficult and dangerous. But a clear pattern is emerging of serious violations, including indiscriminate use of heavy weapons in densely populated civilian areas and obstruction of humanitarian assistance to displaced, injured and vulnerable civilians. Since fighting dramatically escalated at the end of March, hundreds of civilians have been killed and at least 300,000 displaced, according to United Nations estimates. Many of those forced to flee are living in desperate circumstances without sufficient food, water, shelter or medical supplies, easy prey to extortion and abuse by the warring parties. Abuses are being perpetrated by all sides in this complex conflict: Ethiopian forces, Ethiopia's Somali allies in the transitional federal government (TFG), and those resisting the Ethiopian intervention, including militias loyal to the ****** clan and groups aligned to the ICU. But it is the Ethiopians with their superior weapons who are doing much of the harm in Mogadishu. Ethiopia has also participated in a regional programme of arbitrary detentions and unlawful renditions of individuals of interest to Addis Ababa and their allies in Washington. With Kenyan cooperation, Ethiopia has rounded up scores of "terrorism suspects" who fled the initial Ethiopian intervention in Somalia in December 2006-January 2007. These "suspects" include many women and some infants as young as seven months. Although Ethiopia recently admitted holding forty-one people, mainly foreign nationals, and released five people, there are many more individuals languishing in Ethiopian jails without access to legal counsel or independent monitors. Ethiopia is also using the crisis as a pretext to clamp down on its own domestic insurgents, lumping together its armed opponents in Somalia and Ethiopia alike in the convenient catchall basket of terrorism. A blind alley So why aren't Ethiopia's allies - the European Union, Britain and the United States, who provide Ethiopia with millions of dollars' worth of development assistance each year and who are also providing substantial support to the TFG - doing more to stop these violations? The answer is as depressing as it is obvious. Ethiopia and its Somali proxies, including a large number of warlords with notorious records of abuse from earlier conflicts, are perceived by the EU and US government as key allies in the "war on terror" and are doing the west's dirty work against Somalia's Islamists. Behind the scenes the US is helping the Ethiopian military effort and interrogating suspects in Ethiopian detention. Also in openDemocracy on the crisis in Somalia: Harun Hassan, "Somalia at the crossroads" (10 January 2007) Harun Hassan, "Somalia: the way forward" (13 February 2007) Harun Hassan, "Somalia: Mogadishu's ghost days" (5 April 2007) Edward Denison, "The Horn of Africa: a bitter anniversary" (13 April 2007) The "realistic" rationale of western policymakers goes like this: some of the Islamists, whose power the Ethiopians say they are seeking to destroy in Somalia, are aligned with al-Qaida; unless they are defeated the country will be "Talibanised". The apparent conclusion of such reasoning is that rights abuses and violations of the laws of war are regrettable but unavoidable. This "realistic" approach is dangerously simplistic and shortsighted. There may well be some Al-Qaeda element active in Somalia: that needs to be dealt with. But Somalia is essentially a country of clan politics and the war that Ethiopia and its backers have now precipitated is rapidly evolving into a clan war - broadly pitting the ***** clan which dominates the TFG, against the ****** clan which supported the Islamic Courts Union. Somalia's armed opposition to Ethiopia and the TFG gains greater support from Somali nationalists and Islamists alike with every day the Ethiopian troops remain on Somali soil. Branding them all as terrorists is inaccurate and misleading. Before they were dislodged by Ethiopia, the Islamists were widely seen by Somalis as having brought more peace and stability to Mogadishu than it had seen for over fifteen years. The current western-backed Ethiopian approach to Somalia will lead to a mountain of civilian deaths and a litany of abuses. The policy risks precipitating exactly the sort of human-rights disaster in Somalia as the one the west rightly condemns in Darfur. This approach will only strengthen the hand of the extremist minority in Somalia, handing al-Qaida another potential theatre of militant action, and another opportunity to present themselves internationally as defenders of Islam against western aggression. Washington, London and Brussels are in a blind alley in Somalia. They should rethink a policy which is encouraging serious abuses, and come up with one which prioritizes the protection of civilians. They should start by issuing a clear call to all sides in this conflict to observe and uphold the rules of war and human-rights standards.

Somalia crisis worse than Darfur, says UN By Mike Pflanz in Nairobi Last Updated: 1:45am BST 15/05/2007 The crisis faced by up to 400,000 people fleeing fighting in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, is "worse than Darfur", the United Nations' humanitarian chief said yesterday. Aid agencies calculate that almost a third of the city's population has fled in the past two months as clashes flared between Islamic militants and troops of the transitional government. "In terms of the numbers of people displaced, and our access to them, Somalia is a worse crisis than Darfur or Chad or anywhere else this year," said John Holmes, a former British diplomat and now the UN's emergency humanitarian co-ordinator. In Darfur, more than two million civilians have fled their villages since the war erupted more than four years ago. But the speed and size of the exodus from Mogadishu has eclipsed the emergency in the western Sudanese province, where there are established camps run by international aid agencies. There are no such camps in Somalia, an east African country already on its knees after 16 years of clan fighting and no central government. Most of those who have fled in recent weeks, including women, children and the elderly, are camping in fields in areas surrounding Mogadishu, without access to food, shelter, clean water or medicines. The few medical relief agencies operating in the region, including Médecins Sans Frontières and the International Committee of the Red Cross, have reported fears of cholera outbreaks. "We are only reaching maybe 35 to 40 per cent of those in need because of difficulties of access and security and of our presence on the ground," Mr Holmes said in Nairobi yesterday. The flight from Mogadishu took place amid a sustained barrage of heavy shelling in civilian areas from both Somalia's transitional government, backed by Ethiopian troops, and Islamic rebels allied with disgruntled Somali clan fighters. "Clearly there are major problems with the way these attacks were carried out, clearly major abuses went on," said Mr Holmes. "The government categorically denied they had been involved in any human rights abuses." Mr Holmes, 56, is a former British ambassador to France and a senior diplomatic advisor to both John Major and Tony Blair. He took up his new post in March. He was forced to cut short a two-day trip to Mogadishu at the weekend after a series of roadside bombs went off in the city, although they are not thought to have been targeted at his convoy. Some civilians are slowly returning to Mogadishu after a week of relative calm, but the threat of more fighting is high. "I don't think you can say that this is a recovering city. It's a fairly depressing prospect," said Mr Holmes. A planned reconciliation conference bringing together all parties to Somalia's conflict has been pushed back twice, and is now scheduled to take place on June 16. However, it is not yet clear whether senior figures from the Islamic Courts Union, who fled Mogadishu after losing power in December, will attend. They are thought to be supporting the insurgency against Ethiopian forces who patrol the capital. Telegraph

UN official wants inquiry into Somali 'war crimes' By Steve Bloomfield in Nairobi Published: 15 May 2007 A senior United Nations official has called for an investigation into allegations of war crimes in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, following weeks of fighting that has left more than 1,600 people dead and caused hundreds of thousands to flee. Sir John Holmes, the UN's emergency relief co-ordinator, who visited Mogadishu on Saturday, said there was "clearly a need" for an investigation by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour. Ethiopian tanks and helicopters bombarded Mogadishu residential districts during weeks of fighting in March and April as Somalia's Ethiopian-backed interim government attempted to pacify an insurgency. Civilians were caught in the crossfire of what the Red Cross described as the worst fighting in the capital for 15 years. Human rights groups and regional analysts have accused the government and the Ethiopian forces of committing war crimes. Sir John said Somalia's interim President, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, and interim Prime Minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, had agreed there should be an investigation. "They accepted it very clearly," he said. Jose Diaz, a spokesman for Ms Arbour, confirmed that the UN was ready to send a team of human rights investigators to Mogadishu. "It is good to hear that this is the government's position. It needs urgent attention," he said. Up to 400,000 people have fled the capital since the insurgency began at the end of January. A further 300,000 are believed to be displaced within the city. The fighting has made it difficult for aid agencies to reach those in need and the majority of those who fled Mogadishu are still without any humanitarian assistance. Some Somali businessmen have sought to take advantage of the situation. In some areas, the price of water has risen by 2,000 per cent, while in others a "shade tax" has been introduced, charging women and children to sit under a tree. According to the Food Security Analysis Unit, prices for food, rent and transport have risen by between 30 and 70 per cent in the past four weeks. Sir John warned that, with the rainy season imminent, the humanitarian situation could get much worse. "It is easy to imagine the worst-case scenario when 300,000 people are still out there without shelter," he said. "There is already a lot of acute watery diarrhoea and cholera and that could get much worse" The Horn of Africa experienced its worst flood season in a decade last year. Any repeat this year would be terrible, he said. Sir John is the most senior UN official to visit Mogadishu since 1993 but the trip did not go to plan. Three bombs went off on Saturday and a fourth was diffused. "It began to look as if a message was being sent," he said. Planned visits to a hospital plus a tour of the city were cancelled. He had also hoped to stay the night in Mogadishu before visiting Jowhar, a town 55 miles to the north, where many of the residents have fled. But security concerns led to the trip's cancellation. The attacks on Saturday underlined the fragility of the security situation. Few analysts believe the insurgency has ended and many see the fighting as an inter-clan conflict between the *****-led government and the ******, which dominates Mogadishu. A national reconciliation conference, which international observers hoped would bring moderate leaders from the former Union of Islamic Courts into the government, has been postponed twice. Ethiopian troops are still in Somalia. Analysts say that the Somali government is still so fragile that if Ethiopia were to withdraw its troops the government could collapse. Independent.co.uk

Now we know why Holmes cut his Mogadishu trip short. The criminal house of cards is falling apart. The UN is to investigate claims of human rights violations committed during recent fighting in the Somali capital, a senior official has said. John Holmes, the UN's emergency humanitarian co-ordinator, said Somalia had agreed to a UN inquiry into recent fighting that killed an estimated 1,400 people and led to a civilian exodus from Mogadishu. "I raised the claims that there have been massive abuses of international law," Holmes said in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Holmes visited Mogadishu on Saturday, but cut short his trip after an explosion near a UN compound killed three people. The Somali government denies responsibility for alleged human rights violations, but will allow a visit by Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. "Clearly, there were major problems, major abuses during that period," Holmes said. Ethiopian forces helped Somali troops rout the Union of Islamic Courts movement from south and central Somalia, including Mogadishu, at the start of the year. Fighters opposed to the government have since then mounted an armed campaign against soldiers and Ethiopian troops, with violence peaking during March and April in Mogadishu. Two bouts of heavy clashes in March and April resulted in more than 300,000 people fleeing Mogadishu, and triggered what the UN called "the world's worst humanitarian crisis". Aid problems Holmes said aid was reaching only 35 to 40 per cent of those in need due to difficulties linked to access and security. "In terms of numbers and access to them, Somalia is a worse displacement crisis than Darfur or Chad or anywhere else this year," he said. Aid workers complained that Somali authorities had failed to clear food shipments for distribution and said they were being harassed at checkpoints. Since then, the government has promised to clear obstacles in providing aid to tens of thousands of people. The EU is to also step up humanitarian assistance, and is ready to help disarm, and re-integrate fighters opposed to the government. Al Jazeera

Great info saaxib. Thanks!

We're all united in occupation people. While you're arguing over the insignificant Somaliland and even less significant Sool, Sanaag and Cayn, here's the larger picture: 1) NFD (occupied by Kenya since 1964) 2) Oggadeen (occupied by Ethiopia since 1948) 3) Somaliland (occupied* by Ethiopia since 1991) 4) Puntland (occupied* by Ethiopia since some time in the 90's, exact time unclear) 5) Southern Somalia (occupied by Ethiopia since 2006) 6) Djibouti (Occupied* by the US since 2002) * The occupations of Somaliland, Puntland and Djibouti have resulted in little resistance to the occupation and, therefore, are unofficial. So anyone who's having wet dreams of Somalinimo and unity needs to chew on this. SSC kulahaa. What myopia!

Geel_Jirow, in this thread of some months ago, you can read how the definition of brutality of an occupying force was bitterly contested. Juxtapose that occupation of a century ago with this current one while also comparing the arguments of the proponents (and opponents) of each. Wasn't it you who said "some things never change?"

Originally posted by Khalaf: and it seems Ebyan was banned And not a moment too soon. Too bad WS let the immature and incoherent ramblings of a teenager get under her skin. In chess they call this losing a queen to a pawn.

^^^^^ Whatever good these men have done has been utterly washed away by the likes of Afweyne, Caydiid Sr. and wild dog Yey among other shameless characters. MMA, do you happen to know the biographies of these men? Including which clan each belonged to? It would be instructive to learn the path each took to get to the SYL and how they dealt with clan politics among themselves and in the society at large. Thanks for the timely reminder dude. See, you're not just a partisan moderator but an unsung educator as well.

Originally posted by me: no man, marka cadey is city of love! You mean the city of "brotherly" love.

The UN's emergency relief co-ordinator has cut short a visit to Somalia's capital amid fresh security concerns. John Holmes's arrival in Mogadishu coincided with several bomb blasts, one of which killed four people near the UN compound in the city. He is the most senior UN official to visit the city in a decade, and was urging the Somali government to let humanitarian aid reach its people. Two weeks ago the government declared victory over a bloody Islamic uprising. "Mr Holmes returned to Nairobi today (Saturday) and plans for a second day in Somalia were cancelled," the UN humanitarian agency said in a statement. 'Responsibility to citizens' Earlier, Mr Holmes called on the Somali government to look after its civilians, who have borne the brunt of years of fighting. "It is their responsibility to look after civilians, to protect civilians and at the very least not to obstruct aid," he said. He said the African Union could not boost its peacekeeping forces in the capital until the government improved security. The capital has been mostly calm since the government declared victory over the insurgents and many residents are starting to return to their homes. Some 1,600 people were killed in six weeks of clashes between Ethiopian government-backed troops and Islamist and clan fighters, local aid groups say. Up to 400,000 of Mogadishu's 2m residents fled to squalid camps or makeshift bush shelters. Somalia has not had a working government since a civil war erupted 16 years ago.